Twitter Reportedly Planning Company-Wide Layoffs Next Week
October 9, 2015
While the number of employees to be let go has yet to be released, Twitter is reportedly planning a round of company-wide layoffs next week. And according to Re/code, “insiders say it will likely affect most, if not all, departments” (i.e., engineering won’t be spared).
Twitter had around 4,200 employees at last count, up from around 2,000 in the second quarter of 2013 right before it went public, which means it has directly accounted for around 5 percent of the job growth in San Francisco over the past two years.
UPDATE (10/13): Twitter Cutting Up To 336 Employees, Average Severance Revealed.
Comments from Plugged-In Readers
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Maybe they’ll get rid of 140 characters.
[mic drop] Have a good weekend everyone!!!
really good
Maybe they’ll get a government bailout.
Tech bubble 2.0 _is_ a government bailout.
Twitter having layoffs… I wonder if this is the sign of the bubble?
bursting
It isn’t. Because Uber (ugh), Airbnb, Salesforce, etc. are hiring like mad, not to mention Apple and Google.
Indeed. This isn’t a sign of things to come. Maybe for Twitter (GOOG acquisition?).
However, I still fail to see the appeal of Twitter. The only thing I have used it for is finding out if a power outage is larger than on my block or to tweet to a company’s support account.
I’ll agree with you there. I feel like there Twitter must be useful for something. Or maybe it’s just useless.
Either way, it’s a tiny company in the grand scheme of things
Yes it is a bubble. Apple and Google survived Bubble 1.0, so they are irrelevant. Another handful of companies like the ones you mentioned will survive Bubble 2.0. But, there are a slew of startups that will not. They tend to fall like dominoes once investors begin to panic. It will have a profound effect on the housing market, along with Chinese capital controls.
Not to rain on your attempt to rain on the parade, but no.
Google did not exist in Bubble 1.0 (in anything like its present form). Ditto Salesforce. Facebook did not exist. Apple was a tiny unimportant company back then. Today these companies all throw off tons of money.
The big difference was that Bubble 1.0 was primarily fueled by startups with no funding. (Remember that if you had profits or even revenue, it hurt your stock price.) Today, there are all huge profitable tech behemoths. Apple is, if anything, undervalued.
In San Francisco context though….all the unicorns and decacorns that have been expanding wildly. How many of them are “huge profitable tech behemoths”? I think that’s what Sabbie is talking about. Not Apple. Uber. AirBnB. etc etc. Generating lots of money? Yes. Over-capitalized and over-valued? That’s the big question.
Hiring is always a year or two forward of anticipated growth. If the growth doesn’t happen then the layoffs follow closely. This has been a while coming for Twitter — its growth has famously stalled — but many other of the leading tech companies in the bay area are doing well. This is a culling of the weak.
This is probably why,
“Twitter Pulls Out of Expansion Deal at 1455 Market”
and has lost more than 50% from its high.
You know that words work better when you understand how to work with causality, right?
If you’re asking if I believe in cause and effect, the answer is, I absolutely believe in Karma.
The USA is only one part of a whole. Twitter is not the problem, it is just the beginning. The real problem is ISIS-Terrorism, Failing World Leaders-Economies, Vladimir Putin who is acting like a mad man. His missiles can’t reach targets and he recently shot down a Malaysian passenger plane over Ukraine, killing 298 people while nobody said anything. I don’t think he will be in power much longer. The entire face of Europe-Mediterranean is drastically changing similar to WWII, right in front of our eyes…
So, by your rationale, is Barrack Obama a “madman” because the US bombed a hospital and nobody really said anything?
On a real estate blog, it’s published that a local (if globally significant) tech company is laying off employees. It seems like you’ve responded to the topic with a rant about terrorism and a European power struggle. Have you considered that maybe this message isn’t going to make sense to your audience?
Sorry for the rant, but it was partly my rational of why I believe a major seven year stock market correction is imminent that always accompanies a real estate bear market. I’ve been studying Vladimir Putin and he is showing many signs of downfall.
Stock market prices and housing prices are not that closely correlated.
Movement In The S&P 500 Versus Case-Shiller Since 1987
So Putin’s a downer for the real estate market? Hmmm…..interesting…
“I’ve been studying Vladimir Putin and he is showing many signs of downfall.”
Russian people have interest in this analysis by jaguar. Putin is wildly popular with Russian people, beloved even. Russian people think jaguar is, how you say?, “batshit crazy.”
Putin is kinda like a Darth Vader character. Take a look at what happens to his enemies. He was the head of the KGB during darkest times. Russians loved him when the economy appeared good, after all, he has been such a charismatic leader and rumor says he is the richest person on the planet but times are different with the collapse of oil. Would any Russians truly dare to publicly oppose him? By the way, contrary to logic, I believe that oil will come back up next year.
twitter is in the shi**er!!
No worries. Dorsey continues to channel Steve Jobs.
Great product, terrible management.
Dear twitter employees: compared to a lot of tech people in SF (and people generally, frankly) I have found you to be mostly very nice. You will live on and prosper. Peace out.
Trump that!
Twitter has been bleeding $$$ without much momentum or a breakeven story, while their R&D and G&A costs have been nearly double what they should be. I wouldn’t expect they will be leasing any more office space in SF for years, more likely adding to the sublease pool. Time for Jack the Knife to show his metal.
But, yeah, in general, the bloom or boom is off on the momentum play tech IPO, e.g., Pure Storage’s IPO this week. Wonder how many operating months of investor cash is in the hands of the SF unicorns. Down rounds are downers.
You know? Show his steel, show his mettle, OK. Show his metal? naah.
I know “mettle” is a stylistic variant of “metal” and derived therefrom, unlike “meddle” which is a stylistic specialty of thine and shown hereoften.
If only they could lay off some of their users (@kimkardashian might be a good place to start).
UPDATE (10/13): Twitter Cutting Up To 336 Employees, Average Severance Revealed.